Intent
In the Early Years at Newburgh Primary School, we believe that every child is unique. We aim to provide the highest quality care and education for all our children and are committed to giving our pupils the best possible start to their school life by teaching them the foundational knowledge and skills necessary to secure their future learning. This is supported by our whole school Newburgh values of: Nurture, perform, succeed.
Structure of EYFS at Newburgh Primary School
Our EYFS provision is comprised of one Reception class. The classroom is organised in a way that children can explore and learn in a safe, open environment. Children have access to well-resourced and stimulating environments both indoors and outdoors. The outdoor classroom provides opportunities for children to develop their gross motor skills and collaborative learning through activities such as water play, sand pit, gardening and climbing obstacles. The classroom also has access to a practical area, where children can engage in messy play as well as developing their core strength by exploring paint, natural resources and playdough.
Transition / Induction to Reception
Learning at Newburgh Primary School starts from the moment we meet our new families. We have a private nursery attached to the school which provide pre-school, before and after school provision, which we work closely with ensuring many of our children have a smooth transition into school. Our Reception teacher builds links with our other Nursery providers so that we can best prepare all children for their start in school. Reception staff join Newburgh Stay and Play sessions held at school on a Tuesday morning to meet new families and develop relationships to further support this transition into school.
Aims
We aim to establish a safe, happy and nurturing environment with motivating and enjoyable learning experiences that enable children to become confident and independent.
Plan a rich and balanced curriculum that ensures we build fluency in foundational skills. Our curriculum is based on six broad themes across the half terms. We build opportunities based on our observations of children’s needs, interests and stages of development across the seven areas of learning to enable the children to achieve and exceed the Early Learning Goals.
Develop our EYFS curriculum and learning environments, to ensure it is designed to give all pupils, including disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND, the correct knowledge and skills that they need to prepare them for the next stage in their learning journey. We ensure we allocate enough time for practice so that children remember what they have been taught.
Provide a range of indoor and outdoor learning experiences for children to develop physically, academically and creatively.
Ensure all seven areas of learning and development are important and inter-connected and therefore taught with a cross-curricular play-based approach.
Give children opportunities to practise, revise and extend knowledge and skills in a consistent and stable environment.
Enable our children to develop the characteristics of effective learning, which enable them to become resourceful and resilient learners by:
- Playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things and have a go;
- Active learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties;
- Creative and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas and develop strategies for doing things.
Implementation – How do we do this?
In order to implement our intent at Newburgh Primary School, we have developed a Long-Term Curriculum Plan that meets the needs of all pupils.
We ensure that children receive high quality interactions with adults by asking open ended questions to deepen and extend children’s learning and thinking in ways that interest and engage then.
At Newburgh, we view our role as educators, is to observe the children and to carefully and skilfully step in to offer new learning opportunities to develop their skills and knowledge.
Children have daily differentiated phonics lessons using RWI and handwriting is embedded to support progression in writing and into KS1.
Reading and re-telling stories plays a key part in our children’s learning, allowing exposure to a wealth of rich language. Children experience the joy of drawing club and discuss shared texts, new vocabulary and create their own illustrations and develop their early writing and mark making skills.
Children’s learning in early mathematics is supported by the use of White Rose Maths and Mastering Number schemes of work. Staff embed the learning opportunities from these lessons throughout the environment deepening children’s understanding of new concepts.
To develop their personal, social and emotional skills we plan and teach our children how to follow rules, care for their surroundings and show respect for the adults and their peers. We develop an effective routine with precise instructions to support children and teach them how to know and manage their emotions as part of our THRIVE approach.
We ensure there are high quality interactions with adults using the SHREC approach within the learning environment – ensuring that we are asking open ended questions to deepen and extend children’s learning and thinking in ways that interest and engage them ensuring that meaningful learning experiences are embedded in our approach. Staff observe the children and carefully and skilfully step in to offer new learning opportunities to develop their skills and knowledge. Those children who may need further support with their communication skills will have interventions using the NELI approach.
At Newburgh, we believe that regular communication with parents is vital to supporting children’s learning and wellbeing.
Impact – How do we measure our success?
Our children develop the skills to become curious, independent and resilient learners.
Teacher’s use a range of assessment opportunities to ensure that all staff have a clear knowledge of an individual child’s achievement, progress and next steps in their learning. This progress is shared regularly with parents at regular points throughout the year and recorded in class floor books and individual learning journals.
To ensure our judgements are accurate, children’s progress and attainment is moderated both within school and externally with local schools.
As an impact from our cross-curricular play-based approach, children develop skills to become curious, independent and resilient learners and are ready for the transition from the Early Years curriculum to meet the challenges of learning in Year 1.
